Entrepreneurs’ Perceived Social Support : Trait-like Characteristic or Developable Social Capital?

There is some evidence that entrepreneurs that can fully benefit
from the positive aspects of their job design, such as autonomy and
opportunities to learn, experience high job satisfaction and good
health accordingly (Stephan & Roesler, 2010). Hence, all
positive aspects of entrepreneurship come along with stress and
strain. Since the late 1970s, the impact of social networks and
social capital for individual health outcomes has been discussed in
the field of organizational behavior and psychology. The job
demands-resources model of burnout (Demerouti et al., 2001;
Schaufeli et al., 2009) explicates, that an individual’s
performance depends on the relationship between job demands and job
resources. Job demands are defined by workload, time pressure, and
task complexity, whilst social support, performance feedback,
opportunities to learn, and autonomy act as job resources.
Entrepreneurship scholars investigated how social capital influences
business success or failure of start-ups and established businesses.
Furthermore, they have investigated the role of individual traits
and differences in order to explain differences in venture growth
and performance (Begley & Boyd 1987). Sarason & Sarason
(1984) argue that the level of perceived social support could be a
stable attribute with trait like characteristics.
The business context influences individuals’ health, and
thereby their ability to
perform. We want to understand and analyze how job resources,
especially social support, influence entrepreneurs’ individual
health. So far, we do not know whether social support is a
determinant of entrepreneurs’ job and life satisfaction or
health. Most studies considering social support as a key determinant
shed light on corporate employees or members of large institutions
such as hospitals or universities. Hence, we will investigate
whether individuals with higher levels of perceived social support
are more or less likely to be self-employed (cross-sectional), and
whether their levels of job and life satisfaction varies over time
according to the level of social support they perceive
(longitudinal). Data is obtained from the first nine waves of the
Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics Panel of Australia (HILDA).
We will use structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses and
compare entrepreneurs with employees. We include measures for
individuals’ health state, perceived social support, as well
as job and life satisfaction for our cross-sectional analyses. We
will use proxies for density and quality of entrepreneurs’
social networks, and controlling for important life events, such as
marriage, birth of a child, divorce, or death of a relative or
friend will allow us to shed light on the social support
phenomenon.
Sarason et al. (1986) have suggested that a lack of social support
is a vulnerability about which something can be done, but
entrepreneurship promotion programs tend to focus on business
planning and financial sourcing. Therefore, we strongly recommend
strengthening entrepreneurial networks that provide business related
social support. In addition, we think that health education and
building awareness for recreational aspects should be part of
entrepreneurship education, especially for practitioners but also
for undergraduates and graduate students.

type

conference paper (English)

keywords

Entrepreneurship; Health and Well-Being; Social Support; Social Capital; Personality Traits

IWP Institute of Work Psychology International Conference 2012
(Sheffield, UK)

date of conference

26-6-2012

title of proceedings

Work, Wellbeing and Performance

page(s)

1-12

publisher

The Institute of Work Psychology (Sheffield, UK)

review

internal review

citation

Pullich, J. (2012). Entrepreneurs’ Perceived Social Support:
Trait-like Characteristic or Developable Social Capital?. In Work,
Wellbeing and Performance, pp.1-12. Sheffield, UK: The Institute of
Work Psychology.

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